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MAJOR-GENERAL 



(^m[]t §. PrCkllan, 



FROM 



August 1st, 1861, to August 1st, 1862. 



You have been taught, ere this, the value of "one man. 

Schiller. 



TO THE PP]OPLE OF THE UNITED STATES 

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

382 

THE j^tjt:e3:<dti, 

A MILITARY MAN WHO NEVER SAW GEN. McCLELLAN. 



Vv.0 






NEW YORK: 

H. DEXTER, WHOLESALE AGENT, 113 NASSAU STREET. 



PRICE, lO CEWTS. 



"^^^^ 



From August 1, 1861, to August 1, 1862. 



tfywELVE mouths ago, when what remained of the army led by Gen. 
McDowell to Manassas, had returned to the City of Washington a 
defeated, routed, disorganised mob ; when a large rebel army lay in 
front of Washington and could have entered it whenever their lead- 
ers saw fit to do so; when it had become evident that Wiufield Scott, 
the Hero of other d&js, was weighed down by old age and no longer 
able, following the impulse of his patriotic soul, to direct the armies 
of the United States; when despair and consternation were the order 
of the day: — at that time the President called to Washington George 
B. McClellan, a volunteer General, who during his campaign in 
Western Virginia had attracted general attention, as well by the 
rapid victorious movements of his army as by the modesty but 
terseness of his reports thereof to the Commander-in-Chief. The 
President appointed him Major-General of the army of the United 
States and Commanding General of an army yet to be organized and 
to be known as the army of the Potomac, to be located in and around 
the City of Washington. 

To organize, discipline, arm, drill and subsist an army of infantry, 
cavalry and artillery of over 100,000 men ; to create all the neces- 
sary auxiliaries, the commissarj^ transportation, ordnance and 
medical departments ; to get rid of ineflBcient officers of all grades, 
to fill their places with better qualified individuals ; to organize an 
efiective cavalry service ; to infuse into every branch of his army the 
rudiments of military esprit du corps; to impress them with the con- 
viction that their own and their comrades safety depends upon the 
enforcement of the "articles of war" and discipline under all circum- 
stances ; to do all this, encumbered with intermeddling State Gov- 
ernors who do not seem to understand that the army of the Potomac 
is an army of the United States, and not a joint stock concern of 
New England, New York, Pennsylvania & Co. ; to do all this so to 
say in the face of the enemy, surrounded by traitors in all the branches 
of the government, even nearest to the veteran Commander-in-Chief; 
and to do it in the presence of the Congress of the United States ; 



many members thereof, although momentarily silenced in their insane 
cry of "on to Richmond /" by the'fear, that the people might hold them 
personnally responsible for the disastrous results of Bull-Run; were 
only waiting for the crisis to pass by, to repeat again their foolish 
war cry ; at the same time filling their pockets with lion-share com- 
missions on army contracts of every possible description ; every 
member however, considering himself per se the Major-General's 
superior, and the latter in duty bound to grant all favors asked of 
him, for the Honorable Members protegees. 

To do all this required an high order of talent, industry, know- 
ledge, tact, perseverance and equanimity of mind combined with a 
steel-plated constitution. McClellan is endowed with all these quali- 
ties in a rare degree ; he succeeded in forming order out of chaos, 
he created in a remarkably short time and organized his army in 
properly ofiScered regiments, he organized his cavalry and artillery ; 
he selected the commanders of Brigades and Divisions ^ a Chief of 
cavalry and of Artillery from a corps of officers of whom hardly one 
out of fifty had ever seen a full Brigade, or witnessed a cavalry 
charge of a single regiment ; he created an engineer and pontoneer 
corps, supplied with the necessary ponton trains, for the want of 
which the army opposite Washington for months had, for all its 
supplies, forage, provisions, ammunition, re-inforcements, artillery 
and so forth, been depended tipon the so-called Long Bridge — a de- 
lapidated wooden structure with a narrow "draw", while one or 
more ponton-bridges would have multiplied the means and safety of 
communication ; he drilled in regiments, in brigades, he drilled corps 
composed of infantry, cavalry and artillery ; he went with these 
combined corps through a number of sham fights, exercised them in 
forced marches ; and so hard did he labor, so fortunate was he in the 
selection of the commanders of Brigades and Divisions that, although 
his army had to construct a number of formidable defensive works 
around the City of Washington, and although the enemy had ap- 
proached that city in diverse fortified positions, — McClellan was 
able early in the fall, to pass the various divisions of his army in 
review before the President. 

General Scott at that time found himself forced by his failing 
strength to resign, and a new Commander-in-Chief of the army of the 
United States had to be appointed. At the recommendation of the 
veteran Hero, and with his own full concurrence President Lincoln 
appointed General McClellan to the above command ; and thereby 
added to the already unusually great burden of the General the 
enormous labor and responsibility of org-anizing and militarising the 



immense army of volunteers, distributed from New Orleans, Pensa- 
cola, Key West to New York and Boston, and from Fortress Monroe 
to Lexington, St. Louis and Cincinnati ; that is over a theatre of 
war exeeding in extent any ever known in ancient or modern his- 
tory, while at the same time he had to retain the special command 
of the army of the Potomac. 

The appointment of McClellan to this important command was the 
signal of order, of organization, of concert of action and of the redress 
of abuses throughout the various corps of the arm}^ ; changes in the 
commands of corps, of divisions and brigades soon became necessary, 
because the incumbants had either proved themselves incompetent, 
or as in several instances unreliable. The Commissary Department 
and that of transportation were materially perfected, all preparatory 
to the execution of a grand plan of the early spring campaign, — a 
plan in its outlines probably originating with General Scott, and 
worked into the practical form for execution by McClellan, a plan 
contemplating a simidtaneous movement, from the periphery towards 
the centre of rebeldom in Richmond ; comprising the cooperation of 
the armies at Port Royal, at Beauford, Fortress Monroe, Kentucky, 
Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia, supported wherever possible by 
the Navy on the ocean and in the rivers. In the midst of the gig- 
antic labor required to mature and direct the details of a plan so 
grand and intricate, General McClellan found time to have his eye 
on the minutest detail connected with the perfection and efficiency 
of the army of the Potomac, which had several times sent out recon- 
noitreing expeditions composed of the various branches of the army, 
and thereby had found opportunity to get accustomed to action under 
fire ; the men had gained confidence in their respective commanders 
and the commanders had gained experience, self-confidence and a 
proper appreciation of their men ; picket duty and picket warfare 
became a matter of great importance and in consequence of the very 
difficult character of the ground occupied by the hostile armies, it 
became the best possible school of war for the young army of the 
Potomac ; while all the other corps of the United States army, and 
in particular those in the West under Halleck, Grant, Buell, Sigel 
and others were improving in efficiency, as rapid as circumstances 
and a scarcity of proper arms, and artillery (which all had to be im- 
ported or manufactured, ) would permit ; the army of the Potomac 
by indefatigable energy, watchfulness and exertion of its principal 
.officers, inspired by the electrifying influence of McClellan, had so 
far progressed in the process of becoming a real armyih^i, surrounded 
in almost a semi-circle by the rebel army under Beauregard, with a 



6 

line of outposts, pickets and fortified camps of about thirty-five miles 
in length which had to be protected against the enemy's attack, (who 
by the traitors in the United States offices, were informed of every 
order issued by McClellan almost as soon as the same was promul- 
gated to his own army), that nevertheless in the latter part of No- 
vember General McClellan passed in review before the President of 
the United States an army of seventy-five thousand men, infantry, 
cavalry and artillery, fully armed and equipped, to go into battle 
direct from the Parade ground. 

The army marched by the President twice, and tiie regiments then 
returned to their respective camps, the furthest fifteen miles distant, 
which they had left in the morning, and which every corps had 
reached again before 10 o'clock the same evening, — thus a portion 
of the army with forty rounds of ammunition and fully equipped had 
marched thirty miles in one day and stood the fatigues of a r(.'view 
without any accident or casuality, and this to a large proportion 
were the same men of whom, in his oflicial report of the battle of 
Bull-Run, July 22d, that iS' about three montlis before, Gentn-al 
McDowell said th'at they could not march four miles without getting 
foot-sore. So perfect were McClellan's arrangements along the en- 
tire line of his front, so complete the communication from every point 
to Headquarters, so well placed the reserves of all his outposts, tliat 
Beauregard, although he knew beforehand the day and place of this 
review, although from Munson's Hill he could almost see it, abstained 
from any demonstration whatever. 

Thus in little more than three months' time McClellan liad organ- 
ized an army that could move according to given orders, that could 
in its various integrate parts march a certain distance in a given 
time, could do that under its full armament and equipment and had 
given evidence that it could be withdrawn i'rom an engagement with 
the enemy at the command of its generals, in other words, it had 
given evidence that it possessed all the fundamental qualities of 'a real 
army. That day's performance alone gives to General McClellan a 
valid claim to the title of a "good General" if we bear in mind the 
well-known fact that after the experience; of the English army in 
Spain against the French, and after Waterloo, the- Duke of Welling- 
ton declared " that there was iri the English army not a general who 
could march ten thousand men into Hyde Park and bring them safely out 
again.^' 

It is almost impossible to suppose that General McClellan should 
have accomplished so much without having incurred the enmity, 
jealousy or the ill will of some person or another, but publicly he 



was up to this time censured only because he had not permitted the 
"Hutchinson Family" to travel through the various camps of his 
army and sing abolition songs. Insignificant as this at first may 
appear, it is nevertheless the commencement of that system of pro- , 
secution and slander which a certain portion of the public press have 
laid down as their rule in everything relating to General McClellan, 
directly and indirectly, which the patrons of that part of the press 
take for gospel and duly accept as their own individual opinion. In the 
nature of things the man at the head of the army of the United States 
could not fail to be the object of observation and admiration of a large 
portion of his countrymen as well as of the military and political 
world at large. The gigantic work entrusted to the young General, 
the admirable unexampled manner in which the preliminary part of 
the execution thereof, the formation of a large army in so short a 
time, had been accomplished by him ; in a country without an army, 
among a people in principle adverse to war, adverse to any kind of 
discipline and subordination ; over prosperous in their individual 
civil pursuits, and therefore without any practice in nor appreciation 
of the art or science of war ; had centred upon McClellan the atten- 
tion of the leading military men and of the governments of the old 
world. 

When the outlines of the plan for the campaign of 1862 became 
known by degrees — (a circumstance which could not possibly have 
happened in any other country, because it was necessarily the result 
of the leaky character of the circle of officials who by their position 
were entitled to the knowledge of the plan — ) and when the same 
had reached Europe, they Avere there made the subject of professional 
discussion in military circles, and even those generals of the old 
world who are looked upon as luminaries on the military firmament, 
could not withhold their surprise and admiration of its magnitude, 
its ingenuity and practicability. Tiie enormous extent of the intended 
field of operations — (theatre of war) — seemed incredible, and the 
distances upon which cooperation and concentration were to be ef- 
fected exceeded altogether the scale on which the experience of the 
old world had been obtained. But there was no room left to doubt 
the correctness of the principles applied in the combinations as far 
as the operations by land were concerned, while as to the co-opera- 
tive part of the Navy — (to the glory of that noble band of heroes be 
it said) — the extraordinary execution performed by this arm of the 
power of the United States, has had the efiect of making even the 
loudest exceedingly careful in expressing an opinion as to what can 
or cannot be done by the " American Navy T The unanimity with 



which the comprehensive anc^ admirable maimer of McClellan's pre- 
parations for the grand result to be obtained, were acknowledged, 
began to alarm the political wirepullers who consider the next Presi- 
dential Election a matter of by far greater importance than the pre- 
servation of the Union and the Constitution, and who consequently 
hate nobody more than a man, who in consequence of eminent services 
rendered to his country in her hour of trial, migjit possibly, without his 
will but by a spontaneous offering of a grateful people, become a can- 
didate for the Presidency beyond the control of the wirepullers. The 
cry "o?^ to Richmond /" began again to be heard ; why let the winter 
pass without a great battle ? — or if offensive operations cannot take 
place, why not put the army of the Potomac in winter quarters ? These 
and similar questions were discussed with more or less violence, but 
none of them ever received an answer from General McClellan, who 
about the same time began to feel the effect upon his constitution of 
the enormous physical and mental exertion he had to undergo in the 
fulfilment of his official task ; an attack of typhoid fever laid him 
low, but his vigorous constitution triumphed and he in a compara- 
tively short time was restored to health. During the winter months 
the armament of the whole army, in particular of the artillery, was 
perfected by the arrival of large quantities of superior arms from Eu- 
rope as well as from the manufactories in New England. Eegiments 
that had had old fashioned, almost useless muskets-, exchanged them 
with the most improved rifles, and had consequently to undergo a 
new drill to become familiar with the new weapon. The Berdan 
sharpshooters for want of proper arms had for a time to be content 
with very inferior muskets, and remain almost idle ; which caused 
the ignorant and evil disposed to accuse the Commander-in-Chief of 
want of appreciation and care for this corps of picked men, which 
accusations were silenced, not by words, but in proper time by the 
armament of the above-named corps with telescope rifles, made express- 
ly for them and introduced for the first time into any army of the 
world. 

Several reconnaisances on a large scale undertaken by the army 
of the Potomac met with opposition by the rebel army of so premed- 
itated a character that there could not remain the least doubt of the 
fact, that the rebels by their spies in Washington had been minutely 
informed beforehand of the movement contemplated against them. 
The authority of several high officials to grant passes through the 
lines of the army, when only one person ought to have had that 
power, made it very difficult to catch the spies. The hostile feeling 
of a certain class of Senators and Congressmen generally known as 



9 

Radicals, one of the former chairman of the Senate Committee of 
Military affairs, and consequently a person having- the ear of the 
Secretary of war, manifested itself in various ways. A resolution 
passed, authorizing- the President to appoint Commanders of Corps 
of the army without consideration of their higher rank ; a Committee 
was appointed "on the conduct of the war^\ which committee called 
even the Commander-in-Chief before his bar and robbed him, the most 
occupied man of the nation, of three hours of his valuable time to 
learn something' of his plans ; the answers he patiently gave them, 
the committee declared perfectly satisfactory. During all this time 
the cry for a forward movement of the army of the Potomac towards 
Richmond by way of Manassas- — the strongly fortified camp of the 
rebel army under General Beauregard, the hero of Bull-Run, — grew 
louder and louder ; these paper strategists forgetting entirely that 
Harper's Ferry was all the while occupied by the enemy, that the 
railroad there was in possession of the enemy, that he had undis- 
puted control of the railroad from Manassas over Leesburgh to Har- 
per's Ferry, and that on this line was placed a large force of the 
enemy's army, which would operate in the rear of any army moving 
from Washington towards Manassas. General McClellan endured 
all these attacks of the radicals in silence, improved the efficiency 
of his army with indefatigable energy and let the people know, that 
whenever he would move towards Manassas, the enemy would not 
wait to be attacked, bitt would evacuate his fortifications and retreat 
towards Richmond. 

Early in 1862 an expedition under General Burnside sailed with 
the instruction to operate against the forts on the coast of North 
Carolina ; while General Banks' corps advanced to and took posses- 
sion of Harper's Ferry. General Lander took possession of and pro- 
tected the Ohio and Baltimore Railroad between Grafton and Mar- 
tinsburgh ; the latter movements preparatory to a "left xoheeV of the 
right wing of the army of the Potomac for the purpose of driving the 
rebel forces along the Leesburgh road back upon the position of 
Manassas and thereby freeing Western Virginia of them. About 
this time Mr. Cameron resigned and Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, a Penn- 
sylvania lawyer, was in his place appointed Secretary of War. Mr. 
Stanton entered upon his new duties with so much energy and over- 
exerted himself to such a degree as to impair his health in a few 
weeks ; but nevertheless he made himself master of his Department 
and considered himself competent, not only to direct the bureaucratic 
machinery of the War Department but, after having by personal ob- 
servation learned the efficiency of the army, and after having been 



10 

fully initiated in the plans of General McClellan,— -also to supervise 
the execution of these plans, as well as the great man who conceived 
them. This self-reliance of Mr. Stanton alone explains the singular 
fact that at the time when General Burnside had succeeded to gain 
11 foot-hold on Roanoke Island, when Zollikofer had been defeated 
and killed, when Bowling Green had been occupied by the Union 
army, when Fort Henry and Fort Donelson had been taken, when 
the same fate awaited Fort Columbus, when in other words a suc- 
cession of brilliant Union victories under McClellan's general super- 
vision inaugurated the opening of the campaign of 1862, when he 
had organized the army of the Potomac in five Army-corps, commanded 
respectively by Generals Banks, McDowell, Keys, Heintzelman and 
Sumner; that at this time, in the early part of March Gen. McClellan 
was unexpectedly releaved of the Command of the army of the United 
States and ordered to take command in the field of the army of the 
Potomac. He left Washington and took the field March 11th, 1862, 
and the radicals were jubilant of having triumphed over a man they 
could not subvert. It had thus taken Gen. McClellan seven months 
to organize, oJGficer, equip, arm, drill, discipline and prepare for actual 
service an army, ofjidally reported Six-hundred thousand strong, and 
that within close proximity of the enemy. 

Never befoi'e had the necessity existed, so to say, to create so 
large an army in so short a time ; history does not record anything 
like it. The great Napoleon and Frederick the great, the only two 
men in modern times who had rapidly to procure large armies, did 
not accomplish their object in so short a time, nor did their own 
armies ever reach numbers to be compared with that above stated ; 
but each of them found a well organized, brilliantly officered and 
disciplined army, which he used as a nucleus around which to 
groupe and into which to embody new levies. The armies in the 
civil wars of Great Britain were numerically very insignificant, com- 
pared with the army of' the United States ; and the armies of the 
Crusaders were gathered during several years before they began to 
move, while the armies of the ancient chieftains, of Xerxes, Philip, 
Alexander and Ceasar were slow conglomerations of conquered na- 
tions, each following the victor in their own original military organ- 
ization. But in all these instances the organizer of an army was 
either an autocrat by Divine right, that is by birth, or the first step 
undertaken towards the realisation of the object in view, was to 
trample under foot liberal or republican institutions and to usurp 
dictatorial powers in the most tyrannic form, because it was said, 
the principle of a Eepublic granting to the individual the greatest 



11 

possible liberty, is in itself hostile to the cotidentration in one man, 
of so much power as is required to perform the organization of an 
army, and the "one man^^ power alone, can accomplish so great an 
executive object. 

To George B. McClellan belongs the glory of having created the largest 
known army in the shortest time, and of having f roved to the tvorld that thu 
can be accomplished in a jRcpjib/ic, icifhout neglecting the duties of a citizen. 
How enormous the additional lal)or and difficulties arising- from this 
cause alone ! ? 

The clear conception of his plans and the arrangements of the 
machinery for their execution, is all that the autocrat organizer has 
to perform, but in McClellan's case all this formed the easiest part 
of his work; a more difficult portion was, to make his plans and their 
execution conform witli the sacred State rights of some twenty inde- 
pendent States, each of them with his specific regulations, and to 
conform with the real or assumed privilege, of every member of 
Congress and of every Newspaper reporter, to be informed of all the 
minutiae of the General's plans, before the latter himself has com- 
pletely matured them. The still more difficult part was the GeneraFs 
duty to treat with courtesy and have a civil and satisfactory answer 
for every one of the millions of sovereign people, who consider it a 
matter of vast importance to the country to call upon the General, 
either individually, or as self-constituted Committees, to bore him 
with questions or with their own suggestions, robbing him of his 
valuable time and forcing upon him the most difficult part of his 
performance, that is, to arrange his satisfactory replies to the boring- 
inquirers, so carefully that neither of them leaves Headquarters any wiser 
about the Comviander's real intentions, than he came; because if any of 
them shoidd really have learned anything about the Commander's 
plans, he would in nine cases out of ten, immediately sell his inform- 
ation to the highest bidder, be he Union Contractor or Rebel. 

So strictly did General McClellan live up to his duties as a citizen 
of the Republic, that he obeyed the order to leave the execution of 
his own Plans, iipon which depended the early termination of this 'ivickcd 
rebellion, and to a great extent his reputation as a military leader, in 
the hands of a man notoriously incompetent, because the order teas issued 
in the name of the responsible Co7nmand,er-in- Chief, the President of the 
United States. 

The repeated prediction of General McClellan, that the rebel army 
would evacuate their fortifications at Centreville and Manassas 
whenever the army of the Potomac would be ready to advance, was 
verified. While he and his staff crossed the Long Bridge the evac- 



12 

iiation of Manassas commenced. McClellan had hardly left Wash- 
ington when two corps of the army of the Potomac, commanded hj 
General McDowell and General Banks respectively, were withdrawn 
from McClellan's army, declared by the Secretary of War to be inde- 
pendent armies, and their commanders ordered to report to him, the 
Secretary of War, direct. 

The evacuation of Manassas had become known but a few days, 
and the first visitors of this interesting spot had just returned to 
Washington, when the radical Press began to accuse McOlellan of 
"inactivity," " ivanf of dash, '^ and tlie like, because his army was 
idling in and near Manassas ; when to their and the entire nation's 
surprise it turned out that McClellan with that part of the army of 
the Potomac which had not been placed under the direct control of 
the Secretary of War, that is with about one-hundred thousand men, 
had landed near Fortress Monroe and Ship Point, April 5th, and had 
marched by way of Big Bethel to Yorktown. 

The execution of this movement, brilliant on account of its noise- 
less rapidity and precision, brilliant on account of the safe embark- 
ation and disembarkation of a by far larger army than ever before 
or since had attempted to perform a similar movement, either here 
or in any other country, and of an army taking all its very numerous 
artillery, cavalry, Connnissary and Sanitary Department along ; so 
much more brilliant when compared with the repeated failures, great 
delays and mistakes connected with the small expeditions that had 
proceeded it under Generals Sherman, Burnside and Butler respect- 
ively. The brilliant execution of this movement did not elicit the 
smallest acknowledgment at the hands of those, who at the time 
when he executed it had publicly accused the General of inactivity, 
and idleness. The fortifications of Yorktown were the result of six 
month's exertions of General Magruder's army, and very formidable : 
materially strengthened by the circumstance that the Merrimac's 
control of the mouth of the James River, at that time yet undis- 
turbed, (the presence of the little Monitor, the Vanderbilt, Baltic 
and several other formidable vessels near Hampdon Roads to the 
contrary notwithstanding,) made the right wing of the Rebels im- 
pregnable, and therefore deprived the Union army of the support of 
the Navy on the James River, the natural line of approach to Rich- 
mond ; and forced McClellan to make York River not only the Depot 
for all his supplies, but the basis of his operations against the so- 
called Confederate Capital. Arriving before Yorktown he at once 
saw that the only safe way to get possession of the enemies formi- 
dable works, was to approach them by regular siege works ; the 



13 

conception and execution of Iuh plans were equally rapid and per- 
fect, but what was the surprise of the Nation when his requisition 
lor siege-guns Avas only not immediately complied with, but was tardily 
complied with, after the President had emphatically overruled the 
intended refusal of them by the Secretar}' of War. 

Simultaneously with the opening of the second parallel McClellan 
ordered the construction at Ship Point, of a large number of flat bot- 
tomed pontons to carry artillery and cavalry up the York River, in 
tow and under the prot(;ction of several powerful gun-boats, ibr the 
purpose of cutting of the enemies retreat from Yorktown, which he 
said would take place as soon as his siege works should be completed. 

The author is informed by a person engaged in the supervision of 
the construction of the last mentioned flat bottomed pontons, that 
after the horses and artilkuy had been euibarked and had been taken 
in tow by the gun-boats and other steamers, their advance was de- 
layed for several days in consequence of the opposition of the Gov- 
ernment to the intended movement, and when this opposition had 
been overcome and the expedition was ordered to proceed, the rebels 
had left Yorktown, leaving behind all their artiller3^ 

The retreating enemy could not be attacked in the rear as intend- 
ed by McClellan, but could only be harrassed by Franklin's Division 
from West Point, after he had had time to make a stand behind his 
second line of fortifications at Williamsburgh. The corps under 
Sumner and Heintzelman following the enemy, came upon his posi- 
tion at Williamsburgh, occupied by an army by far larger than their 
combined corps. Unusual difficulties of the country, increased by 
artificial obstructions, a stormy day, all combined to cause both the 
above-named Generals, brave, daring and cool under the most trying 
circumstances, as since Williamsburgh they have repeatedly proved 
themselves to be, to allow their large forces to remain idle in the 
rear while the heroic Hooker with his Division, had for several hours 
to receive and resist unsupported, the numerous attacks of fresh 
troops led against him by the Rebel Generals. The chances of the 
battle were balancing in the scale when at 5 o'clock, P. M., McClel- 
lan reached the field, had a few moments report of what had taken 
place, and relieving the troops under fire by the reserves brought 
up from the rear, he at once directed a movement which forced the 
enemy to retreat and to evacuate the fortifications near Williams- 
• burgh during the night of May 9th. The reports of this battle from 
the correspondents of all the various political shades of the Press, 
are unanimous in the opinion, that McClellan at once detected the 
weak point of the enemy's position over which the other Generals 



14 

had blundered all day. WiUiamsburg-h was occupied and West 
Point on the York Eiver taken possession of by the army of the Po- 
tomac sixty days after McClellan had left Washington ; in these 
sixty daji-s he had embarked his army, moved it 200 miles, disem- 
barked it, besieged and gained possession of Yorktown, started the 
expedition to West Point and had fought and won the battle of Wil- 
liamsburg'h. 

The Rebel army retreated iVoni Williamsburg- towards the Chicka- 
hominy, while McClellan concentrated his army at and near West 
Point, and thence advanced to New Kent Courthouse, Cumberland 
and White House, where the Richmond and James River Railroad 
crosses the Pamunkey River. Here he established his Depot of sup- 
plies, ammunition and so forth, and moving his main army along- the 
railroad, he approached the Chickahominy, his left wing near Long 
Bridge, while his right wing under General Porter approached New 
Bridge. The report that the Chickahominy had been selected by the 
Rebel commanders as their principal line of defence proved not to 
be correct, the Union army meeting with very little resistance in 
its advance to the left bank of this rive*', the latter in consequence 
of heavy rains was unusually high and its swampy banks difficult to 
approach. Nevertheless McClellan succeeded to perfect all the pre- 
parations necessary for the crossing of the Chickahominy, and had 
-actually sent the Division of General Casey across the river over 
the Bottom's Bridge arid into a position about two miles South there- 
from, when, before anj^ other troops had crossed and during a storm 
of unusual severity, which made the river rise and overflow its nat- 
ural banks, Casey's Division was attacked about noon by a very 
superior Rebel force, amply supplied with artillery, with such 
vehemence that the first onset almost broke the hurriedly formed 
Union lines. They nevertheless defended the ground inch by inch 
for about six hours, when McClellan by the greatest exertions suc- 
ceeded to get General Heintzelman's corps across the river before 
the bridges were washed away. Heintzelman's arrival frustrated 
the intention of the Rebel commanders to drive Casey's Division into 
the river and to destroy it. Both armies rested during the night on 
their arms, and with the early dawn of the first da}^ of June Heintz- 
elman attacked the enemy, regained the position held by Casey the 
day before, retook all the tents, implements, baggage and small 
arms lost the previous day, (with the exception of a portion of the 
artillery, which had been sent to Richmond the moment it was taken), 
and the Brigades under Meagher and Sickles by a bayonet charge 
drove the enemy beyond Casej^'s previous position. Thus termin- 



15 

• 
ated the battle at Seven Pines, as called by the Rebels, or at Fair 
Oaks, as called by McClellan. The bridges destroyed by the flood, 
July 31, were soon replaced, others were built in addition and the 
centre and left wing of the Union army crossed the river and con- 
tinued in its approaches towards Richmond ; about seven miles 
distant. 

One of the most powerful means to impede the success of an army 
approaching a strongly fortified and garrisoned position, is to direct 
sorties of strong corps against the weakest points of the advancing 
enemy. Choice of time, of locality, of numerical strength and com- 
bination of the forces to make the sortie, are aU'with the Commander 
of the besieged place ; and the distance to be traversed after the 
sallying column has been detected by the enemy, is generally so short 
that there remains very little time for preparations of defence. 
Strategists of the highest order have at all times directed their best 
efforts to the conception and execution of sorties, for the purpose of 
raising sieges and, if possible, destroying the besieging army. 
Prince Mentchikoff", the Commander-in-Chief and General Todtleben, 
the* celebrated Engineer-in-Chief at Sebastopol, had planned a sortie 
from that Forti'ess against the besieging armies, who held well 
selected and carefully protected positions, occupied and strengthened 
by them for several weeks. At early dawn after a stormy night, 
was not a single corps, but the entire English army, about 30,000 
strong, attacked by the Russians, who had approached them during 
the night ; and notwithstanding the undisputed bravery of Brittish 
infantry in the defensive, and nt)twithstanding the presence on the 
field of all the Generals and of the Duke of Cambridge, the Russians 
drove the Brittish army from their position, took all their artillery, 
killed, wounded and made prisoners the greater number of them, and 
would have driven the entire army into the sea or taken them pris- 
oners, had not Canrobert, the French Commander in the Crimea, sent 
one of his corps to the assistance of the Brittish, who drove the 
Russians back behind their fortifications, saved their ally from 
destruction, and made Inkerman a name of glory to the army of 
the second Empire. Had the English Press before criticising 
McClellan at Fair Oaks, taken these facts into due consideration, 
had they remembered how the Brittish army had occupied their 
position at Inkerman for a long time and had strongly entrenched 
themselves therein, and how their entrenchment occupied a steep 
hill, very difficult of access by two ravines only, which could easily 
have been protected by earth works ; while the position at Fair 
Oaks was occupied by the Union army only a day or two previous 



16 

to the battle of that name ; was opeu and accessible to the Rebels 
from three sides, and was actually attacked on all three sides by 
three rebel corps, — had they remembered that the English army and 
all their Generals were unable to extricate themselves from the im- 
minent danger of utter destruction, in which their own want of pru- 
dence, (to protect the ravine in question,) had placed them, and that 
another army was fortunately on hand to protect them ; while Gen- 
eral McClellan found in himself and in his gallant army of the Poto- 
mac, all the talent, the will and the strength not only to repulse the 
attacking enemy, but to drive them back beyond the Union lines and 
to punish them so severely, that they did not dare to try an other 
sortie, or to interfere with the Union army in the reconstruction of 
the destroyed bridges, a movement the Rebel Generals would un- 
doubtedly have undertaken, had they believed in the least chance of 
success. 

Had the English Press remembered and considered all this, they 
would certainly have come to the conclusion, that the situation of 
the Union army at Fair Oaks was far more perplexing than that at 
Inkerman ought to have been for the English army of veteran soldiers 
under veteran Commanders ; that the Union army, engaged at Fair 
Oaks, faught as well as the English at Inkerman, but that the mili- 
tary genius, the strategical talent and resources of all the English 
Generals at Inkerman did not equal those of the young Conmiander 
of the array of the Potomac alone. 

The battle of Aspern or Esslingeu, as it is sometimes called after 
the two villages of these respective names, near which it was faught 
May 21 and 22, 1809, was opened hy Archduke Charles of Austria 
at the moment, when 50,000 men or about one half of Napoleon's 
heretofore invincible army had crossed the river Donau near the 
city of Vienna. He attacked Napoleon with 15,000 men and 280 
pieces of artillery from a masked position, and destroyed the bridge 
across the river, so that the rest of the French army had to be idle 
spectators of the battle, just as Porter's corps at Fair Oaks, and the 
greatest exertions and sacrifices of Napoleon, and the undisputed 
heroism of his veteran army, could not accomplish anything, but 
were pressed hard upon the banks of the river, when night put a 
stop to the carnage; on the following morning, after having lost 
nearly 40,000 men and the greatest part of his artillery, and after 
Marshal Lannes had been killed. Napoleon was forced to retreat 
across the river, on hastily constructed bridges and found himself 
with his terribly cut up army upon the Loban Island, and even here 



17 

exposed to the tire from the Austrian artillery. The lofcis of the 
Austrians was over 20,000 men. 

Here we find Napoleon, the greatest Captain in modern history, 
with his army divided by a river, like the army of the Potomac by 
the Chickahominy (a position, that vexed the radicals very much in- 
deed, because, said their strategists, a good General throws his entire 
army at once across a river, and not in parts), attacked by a superior 
force and compelled to retreat, not onl}^ momentarily and a short 
distance, but forced to recross the river imder the enemies fire, to 
the most undesiral)le of all positions, to a small island, which he 
could not leave till large reinforcements under two of his best Mar- 
shals had approached within supporting distance, when on the 5th of 
June he recrossed the river to fight and win the celebrated battle of 
Wagram, which decided the fate of the German Empire by its de- 
struction on the same battlefield, where six hundred years ago the 
foundation for its greatness h.ad been laid by Rudolph von Habs- 
burg. 

At Fair Oaks, therefore, McClellan and the army of the Potomac 
do not appear second best, when compared with the great Napoleon 
and his army of heroes under similar circumstances at Aspern. 

While the centre and left wing, after crossing the Chickahominy 
advanced slowly towards the Rebel Capital, and protected every new- 
ly occupied position by earthworks and otherwise, the right wing of 
the army following the left bank of the river moved towards the 
Virginia Central Rail Road, and after several engagements at and 
near Mechanicsville destroyed an important bridge on the said Rail 
Road, and finally occupied and held Hanover Court House, thereby 
cutting off all the supplies intended to reach Richmond over this 
road, and at the same time establishing an important point for the 
union with any forces marching from Fredericksburgh, to co-operate 
with the army of the Potomac against the Confederate Capital. To 
the military critic it must, at first, appear doubtful, whether Gen- 
eral McClellan was justified in moving his right wing so far East, 
and thereby stretching the front line of his ai-my from White Oak 
Swamp to Hanover Court House, over a distance of more than 
twenty miles (and therefore liable to be broken by a bold move of a 
portion of the Rebel army) ; particularily, when it is remembered, 
that in his report to the Secretary of war about the evacuation of 
Yorktown he says: the retreating Rebel army is undoubtedly largely 
outnumbering my oton, and they are fighting toell; but considering the 
great caution, characterizing all the movements of his army, caused 
probably by his correct appreciation of the skill, strength and des- 



pei-aie character of the Rebel Leaders, it would be Urijust to doubt 
for a moment, that this unusual and apparently unnecessary and 
dangerous extention of his front was done without a distinct and 
important object. Statements have at various times found their way 
into the Public Press, and have been confirmed by verbal explana- 
tions, made at different times and places, suflScient to establish the 
fact, that General McClellan after he occupied Hanover Court House, 
and after he had approached Richmond to within less then four 
miles, that is, early in June, requested the Government in Washing- 
ton to send General McDowell with 35,000 men from Fredericksburgh 
to Hanover Co\u't House, and General Burnside to Petersburgh, each 
of them to reach their place of destination on or before the 18th day 
of June, so that the two just mentioned columns, together with three 
columns formed by the army of the Potomac, could on the 19th day 
of June advance on five different roads upon and take Richmond, 
(which at that time had not been reached by any of the re-inforce- 
ments moving towards it from distant places) ; and that the Govern- 
ment had approved of the plan and promissed to send the two Ge- 
nerals with their armies as requested. A few days after McClelhui's 
request had reached Washington, as if he had received due notice 
thereof. General (Stonewall) Jackson with 15,000 men entered the 
Shenandoah Valley, found the corps of Gen. Banks reduced to about 
4000 men, unable to repulse him, but in the hands of the gallant son 
of Massachusetts still willing and determined to retard Jackson's 
advance and to retreat with perfect order towards and across the 
Potomac. This dash of General Jackson produced dijBferent effects 
in difierent parts of the country ; the Secretary of war was b}'- the 
report thereof at first terribly frightened, and telegraphed Governor 
Andrews, that Banks' army had been completely routed, and that 
the Capital was in imminent dShger, which dispatch caused stocks 
to fall and cost the country millions ; after the fright was over, his 
strategical propensities began to revive, and the Press gave the na- 
tion to understand, that Banks' corps had been weakened inten- 
tionally to make Jackson attack and pursue it, while his retreat 
would be cut off by McBowell and John C. Fremont; these two Gen- 
erals were actually ordered to exercise all their skill, talent, energy 
and force, for the purpose of cutting oif Jackson's retreat from the 
Valley of the Shenandoah. Both of them moved at once ; Fremont 
led his corps wrong and arrived just in time, to be to late to prevent 
Jackson from marching wherever he saw fit to go, and General 
Shields' corps shared the same fate, but both corps saw Jackson's 
army, had under General Fremont's command a few engagements 



19 

with a part thereof in which the latter did not gain any advantage 
whatever, and permitted the Rebel General to retreat not only with- 
out keeping close upon his heels, but permitted Jackson to elude 
him so completel}' that he had not the least idea where the Rebel 
army had gone to and could not even find their patli. After the Secre- 
tary of War's strategy had not succeeded in catching Stonewall 
Jackson, General McClellan was notified that the co-operation of 
McDowell andBurnside's corps in the occupation of Richmond could 
not take place. Tliis order destroyed the plan made by McClellan 
(when tlie army of tbe Potomac left for the peninsula), at the very 
moment when its final successful execution seemed to be placed 
beyond doubt. 

It is said that when tbe order from Washington Hjached him, he 
for a while held his hands before his face, and that lie looked sad 
and care-worn when he arose; well might he feel sad because the 
position of his army under these circumstances, (entirely difierent 
from those upon which, with the full approval of the Government, 
he had based his plan of operations) in the face of the daily arriving 
re-inforcements in Richmond, was precarious indeed. 

In no other country is any person ever entrusted with the direc- 
tion of armies, who is not subject to the articles of war and trial by 
Court Martial ; and consequently officers of the army alone are qualified 
to hold the office of Secretary of War. The necessity of carrying out 
this principle is painfully illustrated by the above stated facts, 
where a Lawyer and Secretary of war, (not sharing with the officers 
in the army the responsibilities with which the articles of war burden 
them,) takes it upon himself to control armies in the face of the 
enemy, and thereby the lives of thousands of brave men and millions 
of treasure. — 

"Stonewall" Jackson eluded and mystified General Fremont so 
completly that the whereabouts of the army of this successful par- 
tisan chief for several days were unknown, and all the troops of 
Fremont, Banks, who had re-crossed the Potomac, and McDowell's 
corps were kept constantly under arms expecting an immediate 
attack on ever so many points; — during this time Jackson rested 
and re-inforced his army and on the 27th of June moved against the 
right wing of the army of the Potomac with the intention of out- 
flanking it and of taking possession of White House with the immense 
stores of all kinds there concentrated for the use of the army; — 
while at the same time Generals Lee, Longstreet and Hill with large 
Rebel corps drawn from Richmond, attacked the right wing on the 
left bank of the Chickahominy under Porter in front; after the pickets 



20 

had been driven in, the troops dbncentrated and placed in position 
the actual engagement between the very large Rebel forces and 
Porter's corps commenced at about noon; General Porter had been 
re-inforced during the early part of the day and his total force 
amounted to about 30,000 men, occupying a line of battle of about 
a mile and a half; the battle lasted without interruption from 12 
o'clock at noon till sunset, all the efforts of the rebels were in vain, 
although they continually brought forward fresh troops, they were 
repulsed at every point but one, v/here towards evening a portion of 
our troops began to retreat and soon even to run; but a corps of 
picked men was placed across the road; every man retreating without 
order is threatened with instant death, a few colors are planted on the 
ground, the braves rally around them and come to a stand not- 
withstanding the enemy, discovering the momentary disorder, concen- 
trates all his available forces in an advance upon this one point; but 
he is met by the Irisli Brigade under General Meagher, who at once 
charge bayonet ; the enemy is repulsed and the day, on which the 
Rebel Commanders expected to route and crush the right wnng of 
McClellan and then drive his main army into the James River above 
Fort Darling — this day was won by the army of the Potomac. The 
troops engaged against them being two to one. While Porter 
was thus engaged. General Stoneman with some 2500 cavalry and 
artillery was sent to White house, to protect the immediate embark- 
ation of evei'ything there collected; to destroy the railroad between 
White house and Savage Station and then move along Pamunkey 
and York Rivers as an escort for the transports against surprise 
from any of Jackson's forces tliat might move in this direction ; all 
of which was executed in the most expeditious, orderly and perfect 
manoer, and when Jackson's forces arrived at White house, they 
found empty boxes and a few houses in flames. The combined oper- 
ations of the various Rebel armies compelled General McClellan to 
extricate his army from the imminent danger in which it was placed. 
He had only one chance left him to perform this ; that is to change 
his position and remove his army with all the artillery, ammunition, 
baggage and stores from the Chickahominy to the James River and 
there form a new base of operation. But even to succeed in this he 
had first to bring his right wing across the Chickahominy and then 
to move his entire army with its 6000 wagons and so forth over one 
single road, which in a length of six or seven miles runs parallel 
with and in close proximity to the enemy's lines liefore Richmond. 
This plan conceived in an instant was executed on the 28th. The 
bridges over which Porter's corps had to cross, were protected by 



21 

artillery, well supported l>y strong- iufantry corps, and all the at- 
tempts of the Rebels to prevent this corps from gaining the right 
bank of the Chickahominy were repulsed, the bridges were destroy- 
ed by McClellan after Porter had passed them, and the enemy held 
in check on the left bank of the river. At tlie same time the army 
stores were sent toward the James River, the sick and wounded 
went in the same direction, the heavy siege-guns ibllowed, commun- 
ication with the gun-boats on the James River was established and 
on the 29th at night all the wagons, heavy artillery, the sick and 
wounded and Porter's corps had passed the White Oak Swamp. At 
the same time an attack by a large Rebel army on New Bridge was 
repulsed, the enemy driven back and forced to abstain from further 
molestation for 18 hours, when he brought fresh troops upon the 
field. At Bottom's Bridge another battle was fought with the same 
result ; the Rebels trying hard to turn the flank of the Union army 
from the New Kent cross-roads, but the same unsurpassed gallantry 
that won the day on the 2*Ith, repulsed the Rebels here. At White 
Oaks the Rebels made another most desperate attempt, but the cold 
steel of the Excelsior and the Irish Brigades and the grape and can- 
ister too liberally served out to them by McClellan's personal direc- 
tion they could not overcome, and at the end of this hard-fought 
day the Rebels were again repulsed. 

On Monday, June 30th, another battle was fought at Charles' City 
road ; the Rebels appearing on three sides were repulsed after a 
severe fight, in which the Union army advanced to close quarters. 
The Divisions of Franklin, Kearney and Slocum distinguished them- 
selves, and in which the artillery contributed most materially to the 
defeat of the exhausted Rebels. 

The army had reached its new position on the banks of the James 
River in perfect order on the 30th day of June and 1st day of July, 
respectively, marching some thirty miles in four to five days, when 
on the second day of July a Rebel army under General Magruder, 
fresh from Richmond, appeared near Malvern Hill. General Sum- 
ner's corps at once advanced against them, charged upon them, took 
two of their batteries, made some seven hundred prisoners and drove 
them back to Richmond in great disorder, never to this day again 
to molest the army of the Potomac in their new position. 

General Stoneman With his command joined the army by way of 
Fortress Monroe. The loss of life during the seven battles fought, 
from the 27th of June to the 2d of July was enormous, that of the 
army of the Potomac, including killed, wounded and missing, is 
about 20,000 ; that of the Rebel array variously estimated at from 



22 

35,000 to 50,000. The army of the Potomac lost none of the siege- 
guns and only two or three light guns, which had to be left behind 
because the horses had been killed. They captured from the Rebels 
and carried to the James River some twenty guns. 

During the eventful days from June 2Tth to July 2d, General Mc- 
Clellan handled his army of about 100,000 men in a manner, if ever 
equaled, has certainly never been surpassed. He fought seven 
distinct battles, each of them against greatly superior forces of fresh 
troops, led by Generals who had staked everything upon this move- 
ment, who expected to conquer, to destroy the army of the Potomac 
and to gain large, stores of which they stood sorely in need. He 
won evei'y one of these battles, punishing the enemy always so 
severely that they dared not molest him in his march towards his 
new position. 

The broad diflerence between the march uf the arn)y of the Poto- 
mac from the Chickahominy to the James River, and a retreat, as 
the radical Press delights to call his masterly manoeuvre, consists 
in the fact that a retreating army lighting a pursueing enemy, moves 
steadily, although backwards, in the direction in which it retreats, 
while in everj^ one of the seven battles McClellan led his army to 
battle in the direction whence he came, that is East; defeated the 
enemy and crippled him so that he could not move before the arrival 
of new forces ; and then resumed his march Westwards, repeating 
the same movement whenever a fresh Rebel army approached his 
rear ; so well did he economise the strength of his armj'- and so true 
were the hearts of the gallant men, that on Malvern Hill he could 
take the Rebel batteries by a bayonet charge, after having marched 
three miles to come up to them. 

Three days after the battle of Malvern Hill and after the position 
at Harrison's Landing had been fully secured, the division of Gen. 
Shields was sent to re-inforce the army of the Potomac; (too late for 
any real use, except to suppl}'- the places of those whom their pre- 
sence in proper time would probably have saved,) and as Senator 
Chandler, in his speech against General McClellan, told the Senate, 
McDowell's troops also "toere to have been sent hwi." 

No other evidence seenis to be required to show, how profound 
ignorance or evil intentions against the Commander and the cause 
he was fighting for, withdrew originally two corps from McClellan's 
army and retained them so long notwithstanding his constant re- 
quest of re-inforcements ; because the Cit}^ of Washington was as 
safe when McDowell's and Banks' corps where withdrawn from the 
army of the Potojnac — apparently a great deal safer, — than when 



23 

McCalPs and Shield's divisions were sent to the Peninsula, and when 
McDowell's troops "were to have been sent.'''' If these troops could be 
spared at any time from Washing-ton, they could have been spared 
in the spring when the army of the Potomac embarked for the pen- 
insula; they were withdrawn from that army when this withdrawal 
sacrificed the whole campaign ; and they were restored when it was 
too late to save the campaign and the blood and treasure that now 
have to be poured out like water, because they were not sent in time. 

During this week of battles which will mark an epoch in military 
history, the army of the Potomac and the Nation reaped the fruits 
of the systematic training, drilling, manoeuvering and the "idle 
reviews " as the radicals called them, to which day by day the 
different corps had been subjected last winter in front of Manassas, 
and General McClellan was rewarded for the long days and sleepless 
nights, whicli for months he had devoted to the practical direction 
of these preparations. 

Modern history'' records only the instance of the French General 
Victor Moreau, the man whose military genius, by many, was con- 
sidered greater even than that of Napoleon Bonaparte; who jealous 
of him prosecuted and banished him to America, but had the satisfac- 
tion of learning that his rival was killed by a French cannon ball 
in the battle of Dresden, August 2'Tth, 1813, which battle Moreau as 
commander of the Russian army had planned and which Napoleon 
lost. 

Moreau with 45,000 men was attacked October 2nd, 1196, by 
66,000 Austrians under Archduke Charles near Biberach, beat the 
Austrians in a hard fought battle, marched to a valley in the black 
forests, called the " valley of hell" on a,ccount of the wild and broken 
character of its formation; had another battle near Emmendingen, 
October 19th, won the day and took up his line of march; attacked 
and beat the Austrians again near Schliengen, October 24th, and 
reached Kehl in safety which he defended against very greatly 
superior forces. The above mentioned movement of Moreau is pointed 
out to the student of military history, as a most brilliant achievement 
by which he immortalized himself, but when we compare the quick 
succession of the seven battles on the Peninsula with the length of 
time between the battles fought by Moreau, we find how much more 
time the latter had than McClellan to rest and refresh his army and 
to mature his plans. 

There was more fighting done by the army of the Potomac in the 
seven battles between the 27th of June and 2nd of July than there 
has been done up to this date in all the engagements of the several 



24 

Union armies together, the battles at Pittsburgh Landing not except- 
ed ; compared with these seven battles all the engagements between 
the two hostile armies appear insignificant. There has been since 
Bull's-Run, no necessity on the Union side to lead a large army to 
battle, still less to handle one under so many perplexing and always 
different circumstances. George B. McClellan is the only American 
General who has ever led a large Union army into battle ; he had 
to do it against the well-known talent, genius, experience and 
desperation of Jeff. Davis, Beauregard, Johuson, Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson combined, who, exercising dictatorial -powers, concentrated 
all the troops that could be reached, till their forces were twice as 
large as McClellan's, and applied all means to gain their end; he 
had to do it alone, denied re-inforcements, villified and slandered by 
the radicals, annoyed by intermeddling officials with correspondence 
about a house of four rooms which had or had not been used as a 
hospital, and so forth ; supported only and bravely by his self- 
organized and militarized gallant and faithful army of the Potomac 
and its brave officers ; and so well did he and his armj^ execute the 
difficult task entrusted to them, that with all the odds against them 
they completely frustrated the designs of the combined Rebel stra- 
tegists and tacticians and that the army of the Potomac, although con- 
siderably reduced in numbers, reached the new position on the 
James River victorious, driving the Rebel army under Magruder 
badly whipped to Richmond. 

With the most profound respect for, and full appreciation of the 
universal bravery and general adaptedness of almost all the Generals 
of the army of the United States, the author can not suppress his 
firm conviction that by the organization, drill, manoeuvring and 
complete military education of his army, by the consumate skill with 
which he has handled this army in the attacks as well as in the 
defensive under the most difficult circumstances and against larger 
forces of the enemy; as well as by the instantaneous conception and 
precise execution of his strategical movements. General McClellan 
has proved himself, up to this moment, to be the only man, who if 
our country is to be saved by the achievements of her armies, is 
capable of accomplishing that beyond anything else desirable object. 

The Rebels admit that McClellan by his brilliant strategy has 
outwitted all their Generals, whipped them seven times although 
they fought him two to one, and has frustrated their plans, upon 
the success of which they had staked everything. The military 
world at large beholds with admiring astonishment the bold con- 
ception of the movement from the Chickahominy to the James, and 



25 

the unsurpassed galantry and precision displayed in its execution; 
but the radicals among us call this great military success, a bad 
retreat and a defeat, are jubilant about it and try their best to 
make it a cause for an oflScial censure, or better yet for the removal of 
McClellau from his high command. This want of judgement and 
justice although at the first glance it may appear strange and un- 
accountable, is after all nothing but strong evidence of the fact that 
fanatical politicians of this great Republic of the 19th century, are 
just as blind and unscrupulously selfish as their prototypes of other 
ages and countries have been; so was Julius Ceasar threatened with 
exile after his great conquest, Marlborough, the only military genius 
England has ever produced, deprived of the command of the army he 
had led to France victoriously; so became Napoleon after his cel- 
ebrated campaign in Italy, in which he had conquered half a dozen 
kingdoms, the object of jealousy, fear and hatred of the Directory, 
who sent him to Egypt in the hope, never to see him return; and so 
was even George Washington, the immortal, by the fanatics of his 
time, called a slow general without dash, one who retreated to often 
and had no fight in him, he was to discrete and his policy a Fabian 
policy; every one of his subordinate generals who achieved a success 
was by the politicians set up as the proper person to supersede 
Washington, until the patriotism of the country had to be aroused 
to prevent the father of his country from being superseded by one 
of his own officers. 

- Conscious of doing his duty in the best possible manner, keeping 
the lasting welfare of his country constantly at heart, Washington 
treated his calumniators in and out of Congress with contemptious 
silence. George B. McClellan has had no other reply to his slander- 
ers, who with all their unscrupulous means do not succeed to dimin- 
ish the attachment for and adoration of their commanding General 
in the army of the Potomac, where general- officers who had seen 
service in the army before McClellan was born, unite most heartily 
with their younger comrades and with the rank and file from every 
part of the Union and of every nativity in the battle-cry, "McCkllam 
for ever f^ 

When we ask, what induced Winfield Scott who had seen all the 
officers of the U. S. army grow up before him, who had seen most of 
them in active service, who knew their metal and their capacities, 
whose most fervent wish it was to see this wicked rebellion crushed 
and the glorious Union restored in the shortest possible time ; what 
induced him, we ask, to commit the two-fold Herculean task, of 
creating the largest army and planning a vast and complicated cam- 



26 

paigJi, to George B. McClellali, in Belecting him to his successor ? — 
We are answered that Scott knew not only the vigor and capacity 
which he had shown during his campaign in Western Virginia, but 
he well remembered the unrivalled gallantry, the skill and the inde- 
fatigable enei'gy which distinguished McClellan throughout the 
Mexican war. 

From the reports of his simple and unostentatious habits, the in- 
dustrious, diligent, strict but just manner, in which he attends to 
the regular business of his army, (which he has never left for a single 
day,) the precision of his orders, the indefatigable energy, the cool 
deliberate courage and self-possession with which he moves and 
directs operations under the hottest fire ; the never failing word of 
encouragement and cheer in the battle, and of consolation in the 
hospital ; of the swiftness with which he moves, of the eagle-eye 
that, always calm, surveys the situation at a glance, and devises 
the means to become its master ; the unanimous reports of all this 
must go far to show that the characteristic qualities in McClellan, 
which bind the army of the Potomac stronger and stronger to their 
Commander, are the same which upon the heights of "Cerro-Gordo" 
elicited the oflScial commendation of General Scott ; which at the 
battles of Contreras, August 29th, 1841, made him spring forward 
to take the post of the killed commander of a howitzer battery and 
fight it with so much spirit and ability, that General Twiggs recom- 
mended him for efficiency and gallantry, and that he was immediately 
brevetted first Lieutenant of Engineers ; which at the assault upon 
the Castle of Chapultepec made General Worth recommend him 
for gallantry of conduct and signal service as an engineer ; which, 
at Mexico made him push the first officer into the city, entering at 
three o'clock in the morning at the head of his sappers and miners 
under the most dreadful of all attacks, the firing from the windows 
and house-tops, kept up by two thousand released convicts ; when he 
was for gallant and mcritorioiis conduct at Chapultepec and Mexico 
brevetted Captain.'an honor he had once already declined when con- 
fered upon him on the 12th of September ; "en-fi,n" the same rare 
qualities of conspicuous gallantry, daring and professional excel- 
lence by which George B. McClellan had won his captaincy upon 
bloody fields before he was twenty-two years old. 

August 1st, 1862. 



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